PA On Cloud Nine: All But Four Casinos Apply for iGaming Licenses

By J.R. DurenJuly 18, 2018

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) announced this morning that nine casinos petitioned for a $10 million online gambling license that will allow each casino to offer poker, slots, and table games via their websites, provided PGCB approves the applications.

“The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board today announced that it has received nine petitions from casino license holders requesting approval to conduct Interactive Gaming (iGaming) in the Commonwealth,” the July 17 release read.

Casinos had until July 16 to submit their petitions. After that, licenses for each of the three types of online gambling are available on an a-la-carte basis for $4 million per license.

According to the press release, the casinos that petitioned the PGCB for iGaming licenses have to wait up to 90 days to find out if their petition has been approved. From there, they have 60 days to pay the $10 million fee for the trio of licenses.

What’s ahead for the quartet who didn’t petition?

The four casinos who didn’t petition for an iGaming license have 90 days to apply for individual licenses for online table games, poker or slot machines.

It’s conceivable they could apply for all three. However, in doing so, they pay an extra $2 million compared to the $10 million price tag.

With this in mind, one could conclude that these four properties may not want to incur the cost of buying all three licenses. The four casinos who didn’t apply are some of the smallest casinos in the market.

We may see Lady Luck, The Meadows, Presque Isle or Mohegan Sun apply for individual licenses, quite possibly in slots, as slots tend to be the biggest revenue earner for online casinos.

As an example, neighboring New Jersey’s online poker revenue accounts for just 7.7 percent of the overall revenue numbers for online gambling.

Whichever the case, the remaining four casinos have until mid-August to petition for a license.